Party Seeks One Voice. Schumer Steps Forward.

Senator Charles E. Schumer is trying to export his best practices and shore up support for vulnerable Democratic incumbents.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Sunday morning news conferences to denounce overpriced breakfast cereal are a thing of the past. So is edging colleagues out of jobs and camera shots with elbows as sharp as a sushi knife.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, long admired, and reviled, for his uncanny ability to make it all about Chuck, has worked his way into the party’s No. 3 job in the Senate, where he puts his promotional talents to work on behalf of all his Democratic colleagues.

With his party still trying to regain its footing after Republican gains in November, and with many fellow Democrats already worried about holding on to their seats in 2012, he has been given responsibility for sharpening the Democratic message from Capitol Hill and marrying it more effectively to the policies the party is trying to advance.

“Usually, things change when you don’t do so well,” Mr. Schumer said. “My job, our job as a caucus, is to focus on the average family, to show them we actually care about them.”

Mr. Schumer must weigh the hopes of his most liberal members, who crave open ideological battle with Republicans, while watching the backs of moderates, who are pushing for their own deficit-reduction narrative.

“Getting everyone in the tent is hard,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri. “Getting everyone to speak with one voice is near impossible.”

What is more, Mr. Schumer’s attempt to verbally smack around Republicans has frequently been cold-shouldered by the White House, where President Obama has been repositioning himself more toward the political center and shying away from inflaming the budget fight. White House aides have more often than not tossed sheets of ice on the fairly enormous hill that Mr. Schumer climbs in leading his caucus forward.

The Democrats are clear that they want fewer cuts to discretionary spending than Republicans are demanding, but they have yet to settle on what level of reductions they would accept. There are rifts within the party over taxes, addressing the long-term costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reining in agricultural subsidies and scaling back the war in Afghanistan.

“They seem to be pushing different agendas,” Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said of Senate Democrats. “I think they are getting ahead of themselves.”

Mr. Schumer’s difficulties were foretold in December, days after he assumed new responsibilities as both vice chairman of the Democratic caucus and chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. As the House and Senate fought over the preservation of the Bush-era tax cuts on upper-income levels, Mr. Schumer pushed for a tax that would extend only to millionaires; the proposal fell flat, with the White House failing to support it.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday. Mr. Schumer gave a high-profile speech insisting that cuts to entitlement programs and tax increases be part of the spending bill discussion; hours later, a White House spokesman said that would not be happening. Mr. Schumer concedes that their paths diverge, but brushes off the idea that this is suboptimal.

Over 72 hours, Mr. Schumer showed up at news conferences and events to push the notion that House Republicans are pushing the federal budget off the rails. There he was Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” saying Republicans will not compromise. On Monday, between zipping around New York, he issued a news release intended to fan the flames of that argument.

Tuesday morning he was on a conference call with Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan — one of Mr. Schumer’s four public events — ostensibly to talk about China’s hoarding of rare earth elements, but also attacking House conservatives for trying to attach policy initiatives to the short-term spending plan.

“The conservative Republicans in the House are showing themselves to be the Scott Walker Republicans,” Mr. Schumer said, referring to the governor of Wisconsin. They are trying to “shoot for the moon on a wish list of far-right policy measures.”

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For many Senate Democrats, Mr. Schumer’s new role has been a great gift for a group still smarting from missteps that dinged the body’s reputation in recent years.

Last year, at a Democratic retreat, junior senators, led by Al Franken of Minnesota, lit into the White House staff about being left out, even though they helped secure the party’s majority.

“I’ve really appreciated how he’s made our decision-making process much more participatory,” Mr. Franken said of Mr. Schumer in an e-mail. “Knowing that our primary focus is on how our work here affects our constituents back home, he also has made a noticeable effort to ensure that we have clear information on how each policy affects our state specifically.”

In New York, Mr. Schumer built his own brand by identifying headline-grabbing topics, maintaining a grueling schedule (he visits all 62 New York counties each year) and hosting his trademark Sunday news conferences, which he has encouraged Democratic candidates to adopt.

“If the Sunday press conference worked in New York, chances are it will work in Cleveland, Minneapolis or anywhere else,” said Howard Wolfson, a New York City deputy mayor who was an adviser to Mr. Schumer in his first Senate race.

Recently, Mr. Schumer worked with Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska on a quintessentially Schumer-style attention-grabbing bill, one that would make it a crime for anyone to distribute images that are captured by the body scanners at airports.

Mr. Schumer has also tried to unify his party on the fiscal front. For example, he has maneuvered to impede a group of Senate Democrats who are working on a bipartisan debt-reduction plan that would most likely require Republicans to accept ending certain tax breaks in return for Democratic support for cuts in Social Security benefits.

“I thought it was a mistake for Democrats” to put Social Security in the cross hairs after Democrats lost so many older voters during the midterms, Mr. Schumer said.

He has also worked with Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, to end some Senate practices that had led to gridlock.

“I like working with him,” Mr. Alexander said. “He’s direct and relentless and aggressive and result oriented, and I can deal with all those things.”

Mr. Alexander recalled getting a call in Nashville from Mr. Schumer, who was at a birthday party for Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, to go over some legislative fine points. “I said, ‘Chuck, it is Sunday, it’s 9 p.m. and the Jets are on.’ ”

Mr. Nelson, whose home state is heavily Republican, said Mr. Schumer had been more than understanding when Mr. Nelson’s votes had placed him at odds with the Democratic caucus.

“He’s not ideological,” Mr. Nelson said. “From time to time, he has said, ‘You have to vote with the people of Nebraska.’ ”

A version of this article appears in print on March 16, 2011, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Master of Self-Promotion Applies Talents to Other Senate Democrats. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe